Topics in the News: charter schools

Public education advocates on June 17 unfurled a 160-foot-long petition scroll with 30,000 names on the floor of the state Capitol calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers to keep the current cap on charter schools in New York City. It was the culmination of the UFT’s Keep Public Education Public campaign to beat back a push by the governor and his allies in the state Senate to increase the number of charter schools in New York City and pass a private school tax credit that would provide a huge tax break to billionaires. On the evening of Monday, June 22, as the New York Teacher went to press, the charter cap and the tax credit were still in play as Cuomo and state lawmakers struggled to reach final agreement on all the outstanding issues before them, including rent regulations.

Public schools are once again under threat from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Wall Street financiers, who are pushing state lawmakers to raise the number of charter schools in New York City and pass an education tax credit that will dramatically lower the taxes of big donors to private schools.

Teachers and other staff at Academy of the City Charter School in Queens approved a new contract, which introduced class-size limits, improved the committee structure at the school, and provides educators with a 11 percent pay increase over three years.

President Michael Mulgrew told the Delegate Assembly on May 20 that the union is fighting hard to ensure that the mandated changes to teacher evaluation in New York City produce a system that is as fair, reasonable and simple to understand as possible under the circumstances.

Since New York City charter schools have 2,500 empty seats right now, enough to fill four elementary schools, there is no need to raise the charter cap, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a May 26 press conference.

Claiming huge waitlists, charter organizations are urging an increase in the number of charter schools. But according to a pro-charter organization, city charter schools currently have 2,500 empty seats, and a review of SUNY authorizing documents shows that current schools are already authorized to enroll another 27,000 students in the coming years.

The state Legislature signed off on a final state budget on March 31 that will deliver an extra $465 million to New York City schools next year, a 6 percent increase that is the largest in eight years.

Charter schools do not educate their fair share of high-needs students and that must change before Gov. Cuomo pushes through any increase in the number of charters operating in the city, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told a crowded press conference on Jan. 29.

The UFT announced on Feb. 27 that it will close its K–8 charter school in East New York, Brooklyn, at the end of the school year. At the same time, the union has asked the State University of New York to renew the charter for grades 9–12.

"Eva vs. public schools" Eva Moskowitz says her charter schools are public schools and so deserve public funding and public-school space. But she is closing her 32 schools on March 4 to bus students, staff and parents to Albany. Public schools would never close schools to use children as political pawns.

Gov. Cuomo is so enthusiastic about charter schools that he wants to greatly expand their number even though he acknowledges that they are not accepting the same number of high-needs students as public schools.